Travel Insurance

Why you need travel insurance when you travel to Fiji

You don’t want to lose all your money if you have to cancel your trip.

Even the best-planned trips sometimes have to be canceled. But many travel providers — especially tour operators, cruise lines and airlines — offer minimal or no refunds for last-minute cancellations. If this happens, can you afford to lose all the money you’ve spent on your trip? 

One of the best reasons to buy travel insurance is to have the protection of trip cancellation benefits. These can reimburse you for prepaid, nonrefundable trip costs when you must cancel for a covered reason. 

Accidents can happen while traveling.

You may experience a medical crisis during their trip, such as trauma, broken bones, heart attacks, and strokes. When you have travel insurance you may even be able to arrange payment in advance for covered emergency medical care.

Your health insurance probably won’t work overseas.

If you get seriously sick or hurt in another country, don’t expect your health insurance card to help. Foreign medical facilities and providers often require cash payment up front and do not accept insurance plans from other countries.

Medical evacuations can be really expensive.

If you get seriously sick or badly hurt while traveling overseas, and you need to be taken via helicopter to the nearest high-quality hospital, the cost can be enormous. In some parts of the world, a medical evacuation can potentially cost six figures and that doesn’t even include the cost of getting you home again.2

Only 80 percent of flights arrive on time.

This is why you need travel insurance with travel delay benefits, which can reimburse you for additional accommodation, meals or travel expenses and lost prepaid expenses due to a covered departure delay. You’ll be much happier if you have insurance that can reimburse you for your airport lunch or unexpected extra night in the hotel.

A missing bag can ruin your trip.

In 2016, the world’s airlines mishandled 21.6 million bags, meaning they were lost or temporarily misplaced. The good news is that airlines are getting better at keeping track of baggage, even as passenger numbers increase. The bad news is that some bags around 7 percent are never reunited with their owners.

​​